The claims of neurological damage in children are almost laughably disprovable, so the bulk of this piece will focus on the arrival of neonicotinoids and Large scale bee die-off, or CCD (Colony Collapse Disorder). The current narrative is a conflation of sundry Lefty talking points. I invite you to click on the links provided and follow a few more of them to understand their argument. It won't take long.
The neonicotinoid family of pesticides - or neonics - were first developed in the early 90s largely because they demonstrated far lower toxicity than the things they replaced, such as organophospate and carbamate insecticides, both of which were particularly harmful, ironically, to honey bees. But reading through the sources that the Organic Consumers Association used to support their contention that neonics are bad, I ran across a number of interesting facts that ran counter to their assertions:
- Even though agribusiness giant Monsanto figures prominently in the narrative, they do not produce neonics. This ends up being amusing for more reasons than you can imagine.
- Neonics represent less than 25% of all pesticides in use, have a much shorter half-life and are applied in far smaller doses than the chemicals that they replaced.
- Widespread use of neonics in agriculture did not start until the mid-2000s, far too late to be a source of neurological disorders - including ADHD - among children, which had been documented going back to the 60s.
- There is virtually no correlation between the geographic distribution of neonics and any of the pathologies attributed to it, particularly the destruction of bee populations.
- There is no chronological correlation between the introduction of neonics and the onset of CCD.
- In the past two years, the incidence of CCD has fallen dramatically, for reasons as little understood as the original causes of the syndrome.
That’s just the short list of glaring inconsistencies between what these authors proclaim in the various links to this article and the known facts, but simple facts never discourage Lefties. Take this classic instance of stating the obvious and making it sound like something sinister: "Between 2006 and 2011, USDA detected Imidacloprid on roughly 22 percent of the conventionally grown produce samples it tested."
Beyond the obvious question of why it would ever be a surprise to occasionally find pesticides on the surface of a plant, there is the unacknowledged fact that the USDA did NOT find imidicloprid on 78% of the samples tested. Were they completely incurious as to why? They also say nothing about the concentration of the samples, essential in determining toxicity.
Finally, one is left to wonder how it is that these various critics could fail to appreciate that the most common and compelling brief about the likely toxicity of neonics has nothing to do with their external application, but rather the suffusion of neonics via the root system into the tissues of the plant itself.
Proving a connection ought to be simple enough. Show some physical proximity between neonics and, say, CCD, and you have a smoking gun. So, why haven’t Environmentalists done that? Perhaps it’s because even a cursory examination not only doesn’t support their theory, but largely disproves it. Take the geographical spread of neonics and the known instances of CCD. Neonics are used overwhelmingly on bulk grain crops like corn and soy, the vast majority of which are grown in the “Corn Belt” states of the Midwestern US as represented in the map on the left.
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| Corn/Soy Production Incidence of CCD |
While there is some overlap, the incidence of CCD is far greater outside the Midwest than within it, particularly in Western states and the Deep South. The lack of overlap in the states of Illinois and Indiana is particularly remarkable, given that they are at the very center of the farm belt region where the most corn and soy are grown.
Most damaging to their arguments about CCD is that it has been documented as a regular occurrence going back to at least the last half of the 19th century, 120 years before the introduction of neonics. In the modern era, the current epidemic started in 2004, well prior to the widespread use of neonics in 2006.
Neonics were not used soon enough, and their variety and concentrations were too diverse to plausibly explain the systemic pathologies that the Alarmists attributed to them. So, if the timing of the introduction of Neonics is no Smoking Gun, and the coincidence of their distribution and the onset of CCD is no Smoking Gun, what is a Lefty conspiracy theorist to do?
The default fallback is to look at scientific studies. There is certainly nothing wrong with this practice, as it provides the best opportunity to uncover problems before they manifest themselves in the real world. A small number of studies done on neonics speculate that some products in this class of chemicals may contribute to CCD among our bee populations by lowering immunity to mites or fungi that are traditional enemies of bee populations. A few other studies speculate that neonics can accumulate to disorient harvesting bees.
Those studies were, at best, inconclusive, while the most compelling evidence for the recurrence of CCD relates to non-pesticide sources. As stated in a USDA paper published this year: “Declines in honey bee colony health were exacerbated in the 1980s with the arrival of new pathogens and pests. The arrival of Varroa and tracheal mites into the United States during the 1990s created additional stresses on honey bees.”
Talk about an understatement. Varroa mites – which hadn’t existed in the US prior to the ‘90s – are the number one killer of honey bees, and have been identified as the source of CCD across the world going back to the mid-60s. So why don’t you ever hear about the Varroa Mite? The reason might be that there’s no way to blame it on Big Agriculture. The other reason might be that the mite was spread by the “slovenly” agricultural practices of Europeans going back to 1965.
That notwithstanding, even the USDA is reluctant to simplistically blame the syndrome on a single cause. The 2012 White Paper “Colony Collapse Disorder Progress Report”, neatly summarizes the scope of the challenge in diagnosing CCD: “Although a number of factors continue to be associated with CCD, including parasites and pathogens, poor nutrition, pesticides, bee management practices, habitat fragmentation, and agricultural practices, no single factor or pattern of factors has been proven to be “the cause” of CCD.”
Lest you think the USDA is in the pocket of Big Agriculture – a common theme – pesticides have been identified as a risk for honey bees repeatedly in the past 40 years, most recently in that same white paper: “When pesticides are viewed in aggregate on a national scale, residues of pyrethroids (a large class of man-made pesticides similar to the natural pesticide pyrethrum produced from Chrysanthemum flowers) pose a threefold greater hazard to bee colonies than neonicotinoids, based on mean and frequency of detection in pollen samples and relative acute toxicity.”
Just roll that phrase on your tongue: "mean and frequency of detection in pollen samples and relative acute toxicity”. These are exactly the things the Lefties could have investigated before hurling accusations, but that's science and science is just too damn unreliable when you're on a mission.
And no examination of this subject would be complete without contemplating a delicious irony: Neonics were also developed to replace pyrethroids. So, to the extent that Environmentalists have prevented the spread of Neonics, it is reasonable to say that they perpetuated the use of pyrethroids and thus actually contributed to the spread of CCD.
Which brings us back to the “blame Monsanto” mantra of the Left: As might be expected, before Environmental Activists focused their guns on neonics, they attempted to blame GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms). Based on the Left Wing's simplistic and predictable methodology, GMOs had to be the problem because a) their use was prevalent, and b) the Environmental community had already declared them a health hazard for humans. Unfortunately, once the science was done, GMOs were absolved, but it is arguable that the investigation of neonics as a cause was delayed some period of years because of the slash and burn tactics of the Left.
The conflation of GMOs and neonics was intentional, given that the real target of Lefty demagoguery has always been American agribusiness, as represented by Monsanto. Ironically, the neonics blamed for these disorders are produced by Bayer, a German company. Beyond the obvious point that the Hysterically Aggrieved blame Monsanto for everything is the delicious reality that most of the blather against this class of chemicals comes from the European Union, of which Germany is the most prominent member. Funny that the Euros should join hands with radicals in the U.S. to blame an American company for the misdeeds of a German company.
It’s funny as well that the real and documented cause of CCD - Varroa Mites – occurred because of the shoddy agricultural management policies of Europeans, who now stand boldly against neonics so as to demonstrate how responsible they are.
The punch-line here is the fact that when Lefties influence public policy without having thought through the consequences of their actions, they frequently create environmental disasters (Ethanol) or make others worse (the decimation of bird populations). More about that in a future post. In the meantime, here's hoping that they actually do a little research on industrial farming in the new year.
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